brimstoneSalad wrote:Admins should not be expected to put in a lot of work for a user who is uninterested in using the forum.
A deleted account can not be recovered. We would have to manually move every single post to make it so it can be recovered.

If you walk into a store in the mall and leave without buying anything, the staff is still going to be super polite and respectful to you.

Can't there be a way to make it so that all of a users posts can be moved to the blackhole (deleting an account) and moved back? Why would that be complicated?
If it is too complicated, then we should leave recovery out. Deleting without recovery is better than no deleting, because it gives the most choice to the user. If a user feels they have jeopardized their privacy, or for any additional reason wants to delete their posts and/or account, that should be their perogative.

Why can't users even delete their own posts? That makes no sense. They're their posts.

See above; it can not be recovered, period.
If you left your account logged in somewhere and somebody decided to have some fun and delete your account and ALL of your posts permanently, you wouldn't see that as dangerous?

Well no, that's not dangerous. How is that dangerous? Will that make you injured or sick? No. It's an inconvenience. But why would that happen anyway? Why would someone who came across another person's account, presumably on a library computer or something, go to the trouble of doing that?

If there are privacy issues and the user is polite, we can help with that. That's a reasonable request.

If there are no apparent privacy issues, and the user just wants to remove the context from discussions to inconvenience others out of malice (rage quit), we should not be expected to go out of our ways to help do that (down even to editing every post that ever quoted the user, or deleting every thread the user ever posted in or started).
I am concerned with user privacy, but context and the value of discussions here should be maintained as much as possible. There is a limit to what can be erased on a public forum. People need to know the other half of discussions they spend time on won't just vanish and leave the thread (and all of the work put into it) useless.

"if the user is polite"
No. If there are privacy issues, it should 100% be the choice of the user to remove their posts. What do you mean, if they're polite? What is this?

I don't know why you're making this so complicated. You don't have to edit their posts or delete topics with their posts. Just make it so they can delete their own individual posts - that is no work whatsoever for a moderated. And make it so they can delete their accounts, and the posts will automatically delete. You'd only have to put in work if they want to recover their account.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Admins should not be expected to put in a lot of work for a user who is uninterested in using the forum.
A deleted account can not be recovered. We would have to manually move every single post to make it so it can be recovered.

If you walk into a store in the mall and leave without buying anything, the staff is still going to be super polite and respectful to you.

That's fine, but what if you then demand they delete the security footage that contains images of you, and inconvenience other customers by closing some of the stores which you went into in order to clean them to make sure there are no hairs, fibers, or fingerprints left behind from you?

If somebody can point at a particular privacy issue, like a link accidentally shared, it's good precedent to delete it (whether this is an active user or not). But removing entire conversations that have no substantially personally identifiable information in them goes beyond a reasonable request, particularly when there are other people involved.

Can't there be a way to make it so that all of a users posts can be moved to the blackhole (deleting an account) and moved back? Why would that be complicated?

PHPBB does not support this.
It just can't be done. It would all have to be done manually, and that's very bad precedent leading to users expecting admins to put in that much work. And a deleted account still can't be restored. I changed the username, which is the thing that can be undone if requested.

So, unless you want to learn how to program and spend a few weeks programming that feature for the sake of users who want to leave, and for no explicable reason want their posts removed (which hurts the forum and other active users)...

But even if there were such a feature, given that it harms active users (who want conversations they spent time on to remain valuable) for the sake of a user who does not want to participate anymore, I would not be for implementing it.

I sympathize with privacy concerns. Not so much with deleting anonymous content for no apparent reason which then harms other users.

Do you remember how much time I spent arguing with Teo and convincing him the Earth was round?
I didn't do that just for Teo. I put in that work so it would serve as a reference for arguments.
If Teo left and deleted all of his posts, that thread would become useless and all of my work on that lost.

I would leave the forum if that were the rule here.

I do not waste my time on Youtube comments for this very reason. Every bit of work you put in can be wiped away in an instant, and none of it index-able. That's Youtube's prerogative, and that's fine, but that's how forums are different from Youtube and why I post here but not there.

Now if Teo let slip his address or real name somewhere, I would be glad to remove it because that doesn't affect the usefulness of the conversation.

If it is too complicated, then we should leave recovery out. Deleting without recovery is better than no deleting, because it gives the most choice to the user. If a user feels they have jeopardized their privacy, or for any additional reason wants to delete their posts and/or account, that should be their perogative.

I disagree. Other people participate here, and that would harm them for the sake of a user (or hacker, we don't even know if the request is legit and there's no way to confirm that).

I think you're trying to take one side here because you see the departing user as in a victim situation somehow, and it's causing you to ignore very real harm done to existing users and the forum.
We have to weigh cost and benefit here, and I will (and by duty must) prefer the forum and active users over departing ones when there's a conflict of interests.

Why can't users even delete their own posts? That makes no sense. They're their posts.

Because it harms other users. This is a discussion forum. Other discussion forums also have similar rules prohibiting deletion of posts, because it makes conversation and debate threads unreadable. This is normal for serious discussion forums. It may not be normal for casual forums where people talk about their lives or their pets, but this isn't that.

People invest time and energy here on serious discussions which themselves are timeless and serve as important references that are web indexed, and they expect their discussions to be available for reference and to link others to.

Well no, that's not dangerous. How is that dangerous? Will that make you injured or sick?

It harms their interests.
Destroying a person's work is harmful. It is an injury, just not a physical one.

What if you spent years building up a blog, and it was your reputation and life's work, and somebody just deleted it forever for fun?
Or spent your life on a painting, and somebody just tossed it into a fire?
Not cool.

People who work hard on their content would rather be physically injured or sick.
I'd rather be punched in the gut than lose my work here, or have it devalued by becoming unreadable (same thing).

Then it's an inconvenience for people to not be able to delete their posts. This forum exists for its users and those who find the threads useful and educational, not its non-users.

You can't argue that it's a mere inconvenience to have your content deleted, and so it doesn't matter, but then argue that it's important that people be able to delete their content.

You should be able to delete all of your shit on Facebook (that's very personal), or even somewhere like Deviant Art (again, your personal art and whatever). This isn't that; this affects others, because conversations (which are mostly evergreen here) are intimately linked and each post is essential in a dialogue to follow the discussion. By deleting your stuff, you'd cause havoc for others and harm their work.

You're taking sides against active forum members here, and I don't think you fully realize the implications.

But why would that happen anyway? Why would someone who came across another person's account, presumably on a library computer or something, go to the trouble of doing that?

Because they're assholes, or malicious. People do that stuff all the time. I've had people do stuff on my accounts in the past. People can and will delete accounts for fun when they find them on public computers. Or even angry siblings who sneak into rooms to get revenge.

"if the user is polite"
No. If there are privacy issues, it should 100% be the choice of the user to remove their posts. What do you mean, if they're polite? What is this?

It takes time out of other people's days to do that.
There's no law that compels such deletion (unless we're talking about somebody under 13, in which case parents can ask any way they want; we have to). For adults, unless they have a court order, it's a matter of courtesy.
People can't come here being rude and making demands and expect others to do work for them as a matter of entitlement.

Yes, they need to ask nicely.
If they demand rudely, then apologize and ask nicely later that's fine. But they will be respectful and ask nicely if they expect people to do things for them that are not required by law.

Doing this establishes a bad precedent, it harms the forum and other users.
If this was the rule on the forum, I would no longer participate. I'm not going to hand over draconian control to deleting posts and making threads unreadable to people who want to ragequit and harm the forum. It would become pointless having conversations when they just disappear.

If there are legitimate privacy concerns, I'm all for helping and fixing those. That's as far as it goes, though. I won't act against the interests of active users for the sake of the whim of a user who has no interest in the forum.

Again, that's functionally impossible. An admin can not un-delete an account.

We would have to load a backup of the forum from a previous day, and ALL of the posts since then by other users would be lost. So then we'd have to copy all of those posts manually before restoring the backup and re-post them after, making a note that it's a post from another user.

That's absurd. Sorry, no.

If it makes you feel better, I can add into the forum rules a note to make it clear that posts will not be edited or deleted except for the case of legitimate privacy concerns when the user asks nicely, and explain why. It's not really a rule, though, it's just something they can't do. And that's true on many forums and comment sections.

I really cannot respond to this fully because I have to study, and this is ridiculous to have an extended debate on anyway

brimstoneSalad wrote:That's fine, but what if you then demand they delete the security footage that contains images of you, and inconvenience other customers by closing some of the stores which you went into in order to clean them to make sure there are no hairs, fibers, or fingerprints left behind from you?

If somebody can point at a particular privacy issue, like a link accidentally shared, it's good precedent to delete it (whether this is an active user or not). But removing entire conversations that have no substantially personally identifiable information in them goes beyond a reasonable request, particularly when there are other people involved.

This isn't a security issue or a petty "what if there's a DNA test" issue.

PHPBB does not support this.
It just can't be done. It would all have to be done manually, and that's very bad precedent leading to users expecting admins to put in that much work. And a deleted account still can't be restored. I changed the username, which is the thing that can be undone if requested.

So, unless you want to learn how to program and spend a few weeks programming that feature for the sake of users who want to leave, and for no explicable reason want their posts removed (which hurts the forum and other active users)...

But even if there were such a feature, given that it harms active users (who want conversations they spent time on to remain valuable) for the sake of a user who does not want to participate anymore, I would not be for implementing it.

I sympathize with privacy concerns. Not so much with deleting anonymous content for no apparent reason which then harms other users.

Do you remember how much time I spent arguing with Teo and convincing him the Earth was round?
I didn't do that just for Teo. I put in that work so it would serve as a reference for arguments.
If Teo left and deleted all of his posts, that thread would become useless and all of my work on that lost.

I would leave the forum if that were the rule here.

I do not waste my time on Youtube comments for this very reason. Every bit of work you put in can be wiped away in an instant, and none of it index-able. That's Youtube's prerogative, and that's fine, but that's how forums are different from Youtube and why I post here but not there.

Now if Teo let slip his address or real name somewhere, I would be glad to remove it because that doesn't affect the usefulness of the conversation.

No, your posts would still exist with his quotes.

This is a relatively small internet forum. There isn't a large audience to read in depth arguments like that. If you want to do activism through informing people, then write a book, or become a teacher. Making posts on the Philosophical Vegan Forum isn't making a difference.
But that doesn't even matter, because your posts would still exist if someone else's account was deleted.

Besides, you could save your posts by copying and pasting them onto a microsoft word document if you care that much. That's your choice.

I disagree. Other people participate here, and that would harm them for the sake of a user (or hacker, we don't even know if the request is legit and there's no way to confirm that).

I think you're trying to take one side here because you see the departing user as in a victim situation somehow, and it's causing you to ignore very real harm done to existing users and the forum.
We have to weigh cost and benefit here, and I will (and by duty must) prefer the forum and active users over departing ones when there's a conflict of interests.

Oh my god. This isn't about political correctness.

It doesn't make sense that people cannot delete their own posts and accounts. It's that simple.

Hacker? Who hacks someone's forum account? If you're a famous person and you say your account gets hacked, ok. If you're a random dude on an Internet forum, that's not going to happen.

Because it harms other users. This is a discussion forum. Other discussion forums also have similar rules prohibiting deletion of posts, because it makes conversation and debate threads unreadable. This is normal for serious discussion forums. It may not be normal for casual forums where people talk about their lives or their pets, but this isn't that.

People invest time and energy here on serious discussions which themselves are timeless and serve as important references that are web indexed, and they expect their discussions to be available for reference and to link others to.

They do? That doesn't make sense. Your posts with other peoples' quotes would remain.

It harms their interests.
Destroying a person's work is harmful. It is an injury, just not a physical one.

What if you spent years building up a blog, and it was your reputation and life's work, and somebody just deleted it forever for fun?
Or spent your life on a painting, and somebody just tossed it into a fire?
Not cool.

People who work hard on their content would rather be physically injured or sick.
I'd rather be punched in the gut than lose my work here, or have it devalued by becoming unreadable (same thing).

If you're really passionate about your philosophical ideas, become a philosophy teacher or write a book. This is just a forum.

But again, this isn't impacting you.

Then it's an inconvenience for people to not be able to delete their posts. This forum exists for its users and those who find the threads useful and educational, not its non-users.

You can't argue that it's a mere inconvenience to have your content deleted, and so it doesn't matter, but then argue that it's important that people be able to delete their content.

You should be able to delete all of your shit on Facebook (that's very personal), or even somewhere like Deviant Art (again, your personal art and whatever). This isn't that; this affects others, because conversations (which are mostly evergreen here) are intimately linked and each post is essential in a dialogue to follow the discussion. By deleting your stuff, you'd cause havoc for others and harm their work.

You're taking sides against active forum members here, and I don't think you fully realize the implications.

Your posts aren't going to be deleted anyway. Only people who want their posts deleted will be deleted.

Because they're assholes, or malicious. People do that stuff all the time. I've had people do stuff on my accounts in the past. People can and will delete accounts for fun when they find them on public computers. Or even angry siblings who sneak into rooms to get revenge.

Search "My brother deleted my account".

...
Your reason why we can't allow people to delete accounts is that maybe someone else will delete your account. I don't even...

Ok. We shouldn't let people post either, someone could be posting on their account.

It takes time out of other people's days to do that.
There's no law that compels such deletion (unless we're talking about somebody under 13, in which case parents can ask any way they want; we have to). For adults, unless they have a court order, it's a matter of courtesy.
People can't come here being rude and making demands and expect others to do work for them as a matter of entitlement.

Yes, they need to ask nicely.
If they demand rudely, then apologize and ask nicely later that's fine. But they will be respectful and ask nicely if they expect people to do things for them that are not required by law.

I think that's more than fair.

It wouldn't have to take time out of your day if you just let people make their own decisions about their own posts and accounts.

You're complaining about it taking time out of your day while simultaneously preventing the people who want their posts/accounts deleted from deleting them themselves.

It's a matter of privacy. Administrators need to respect the privacy of the users. That's not a courtesy just because it isn't law.

I'm not, it's very simple.

Doing this establishes a bad precedent, it harms the forum and other users.
If this was the rule on the forum, I would no longer participate. I'm not going to hand over draconian control to deleting posts and making threads unreadable to people who want to ragequit and harm the forum. It would become pointless having conversations when they just disappear.

If there are legitimate privacy concerns, I'm all for helping and fixing those. That's as far as it goes, though. I won't act against the interests of active users for the sake of the whim of a user who has no interest in the forum.

What?

It's not a whim, and it's not draconian to be able to have control over your own posts.

Again, that's functionally impossible. An admin can not un-delete an account.

We would have to load a backup of the forum from a previous day, and ALL of the posts since then by other users would be lost. So then we'd have to copy all of those posts manually before restoring the backup and re-post them after, making a note that it's a post from another user.

That's absurd. Sorry, no.

If it makes you feel better, I can add into the forum rules a note to make it clear that posts will not be edited or deleted except for the case of legitimate privacy concerns when the user asks nicely, and explain why. It's not really a rule, though, it's just something they can't do. And that's true on many forums and comment sections.

? If it makes me feel better. Yes, this is effecting me so deeply. I can't get any sleep at night because I disagree with the forum rules.

No, I just think the rule is ridiculous.

Clearly you're not going to move on this, so whatever. I don't really care that much. But this just doesn't make sense. People can edit their own posts to upset discussions. Should that be banned too, because it can be abused?

To the extent he is quoted, there is no point in deleting his posts because they are still there anyway.
To the extent he is not quoted, it devalues my contribution to the thread.

You can't have it both ways, where the removal is both useful to the poster and does not devalue the thread.
There are cases of threads which have little value beyond discussing personal issues, but that's a difficult determination to make and it has to be case by case.

I would prefer if people do not feel compelled to quote entire posts for fear of context being lost. You know we discourage that here-- because the context will remain. People are trusting that the context will not be removed when they quote small segments. Allowing posts to be deleted would violate that trust.

This is a relatively small internet forum. There isn't a large audience to read in depth arguments like that. If you want to do activism through informing people, then write a book, or become a teacher. Making posts on the Philosophical Vegan Forum isn't making a difference.

OK, so that's the problem.

I see the issue is that you do not value the forum much, or think of it only as recreation. If I felt that way, I would not be here.

Maybe you're having a bad day and don't really feel that way (you know we have inspired people to reduce their animal product consumption here), but if you do really feel that way maybe you're just done with the forum. That's OK, it's rare one user stays on a forum for years, but you don't need to insult what we do here -- it's far more valuable than academics, and more accessible than publishing a book which is extremely expensive (how privileged do you have to be to recommend publishing a book as an alternative to posting on a forum?).

If you will do some Google searches on popular topics here, you will see that they easily come up on the first page, and view counts for threads FAR exceed the views from the active posters in those threads.

But that doesn't even matter, because your posts would still exist if someone else's account was deleted.

It does matter, because if you think the forum has no real value to the world, then of course you won't care if the usefulness of the content is destroyed -- because you don't think the content is useful to begin with.

Besides, you could save your posts by copying and pasting them onto a microsoft word document if you care that much. That's your choice.

It's not about having them as a personal resource, it's about having the discussions you've had publicly available as a resource to others.
You think the forum is basically useless, though, so clearly you see no value in that.

You're taking sides against everybody who cares about the forum and wishes it to remain readable. Not only active members, but active lurkers.
The very people who want to delete their posts benefited while lurking from others NOT having done so.

It's just ridiculous that you can't delete your own posts at your will.

Your opinion that it "doesn't make sense" or it's "ridiculous" is NOT an argument.
Do you accept such powerful arguments against evolution as "it doesn't make sense" or it's "ridiculous"?
How about against gay marriage? Or anything else?

Your posts aren't going to be deleted anyway. Only people who want their posts deleted will be deleted.

1. I explained how that is untrue. People who don't want their posts deleted would have them deleted occasionally by malicious unauthorized users. This actually happens. Do five seconds of Google searching and you'll see pages of complaints.
2. It makes my posts useless to have lost important context in the discussion. Nobody is going to read a thread that's hard to read like that. It's hard enough to get people to read period. An issue like that would render the forum useless for most readers.

Ok. We shouldn't let people post either, someone could be posting on their account.

Deletion in itself serves no purpose. I explained this in detail. It's a risk without benefit. It also can not be undone.

If some nut starts posting penis pictures on your account because you left it logged in at the library, we can actually fix that.
As it stands, there's nothing somebody can do to your account that we can't fix (assuming it's been a few minutes since you posted) if you lose access temporarily. That's a good thing.

People not being able to delete their own posts/accounts could put their security at risk. It's also irritating to not be able to delete your own content.

To the extent he is quoted, there is no point in deleting his posts because they are still there anyway.
To the extent he is not quoted, it devalues my contribution to the thread.

You can't have it both ways, where the removal is both useful to the poster and does not devalue the thread.
There are cases of threads which have little value beyond discussing personal issues, but that's a difficult determination to make and it has to be case by case.

I would prefer if people do not feel compelled to quote entire posts for fear of context being lost. You know we discourage that here-- because the context will remain. People are trusting that the context will not be removed when they quote small segments. Allowing posts to be deleted would violate that trust.

Ideally, you should be able to delete all of your own posts. If you have privacy concerns with parts other people have quoted, then those should be removed by editing.

OK, so that's the problem.

I see the issue is that you do not value the forum much, or think of it only as recreation. If I felt that way, I would not be here.

Maybe you're having a bad day and don't really feel that way (you know we have inspired people to reduce their animal product consumption here), but if you do really feel that way maybe you're just done with the forum. That's OK, it's rare one user stays on a forum for years, but you don't need to insult what we do here -- it's far more valuable than academics, and more accessible than publishing a book which is extremely expensive (how privileged do you have to be to recommend publishing a book as an alternative to posting on a forum?).

If you will do some Google searches on popular topics here, you will see that they easily come up on the first page, and view counts for threads FAR exceed the views from the active posters in those threads.

Wtf?

The forum isn't activism. That's what I'm saying.
It's far more valuable than academics? Really? How ignorant do you have to be to say that an Internet forum with a small amount of users is more important than school and college? Academics can get you out of poverty and change your entire life. An Internet forum can't.

I don't know the process of publishing a book. It was just one example of many of actual forms of activism (as opposed to posting on a forum).

It does matter, because if you think the forum has no real value to the world, then of course you won't care if the usefulness of the content is destroyed -- because you don't think the content is useful to begin with.

I'm trying not to choke on all these words you're putting on my mouth.

It's not about having them as a personal resource, it's about having the discussions you've had publicly available as a resource to others.
You think the forum is basically useless, though, so clearly you see no value in that.

Clearly you don't understand what I was saying. If you have the posts saved, you can make them available again in the case they are deleted by some person who gets on your account somehow (which is extremely unlikely).

"It doesn't make sense" is not an argument.
You see no value to the forum, so you see no value to retaining posts here. Simple. Others here disagree.

You disagree with a statement you think I made.

It's the internet, it happens. It could be as simple as a sibling sneaking into your room.

DELETED ACCOUNTS CAN NOT BE RECOVERED. You don't seem to grasp this.
Or you do, but again, you see no value in the forum so you don't care. That's the problem.

I don't think most users want a "delete my account permanently" button in their profiles for somebody malicious to press if they forget to log out.

Unlikely.

You're taking sides against everybody who cares about the forum and wishes it to remain readable. Not only active members, but active lurkers.
The very people who want to delete their posts benefited while lurking from others NOT having done so.

? No, I'm really not.

1. I explained how that is untrue. People who don't want their posts deleted would have them deleted occasionally by malicious unauthorized users. This actually happens. Do five seconds of Google searching and you'll see pages of complaints.
2. It makes my posts useless to have lost important context in the discussion. Nobody is going to read a thread that's hard to read like that. It's hard enough to get people to read period. An issue like that would render the forum useless for most readers.

1. You can find five pages on anything with a google search. That doesn't mean it is likely, at all. I mean, seriously? People should not have the option to delete their posts because hackers might delete them?
2. You're right, nobody reads threads that are hard to read in depth. That is why people use quoting for in depth arguments.

Deletion in itself serves no purpose. I explained this in detail. It's a risk without benefit. It also can not be undone.

If some nut starts posting penis pictures on your account because you left it logged in at the library, we can actually fix that.
As it stands, there's nothing somebody can do to your account that we can't fix (assuming it's been a few minutes since you posted) if you lose access temporarily. That's a good thing.

Assuming its been a few minutes since you posted?

It's not a matter of privacy, clearly, it's a matter of ideology for which you have made no arguments, and only insulted the forum as basically useless to the world.

If somebody can show there's a privacy concern, as I said, that can be fixed. That's something with an actual reason.

You not agreeing with arguments doesn't mean they don't exist, and you strawmanning what I said doesn't change my actual position.

The privacy concern is that you don't have full autonomy to delete your personal private information. If I post that I live on 32 Tulip Avenue in New Orleans, I should be able to delete that right away. I shouldn't have to *politely* ask a moderator to do it for me, and potentially wait a period of time.

No they don't, but will because it's nice to do so if it's practical. Only up until the point that it does no harm to the forum.

What kind of a forum violates peoples' privacy intentionally because a user is impolite? Wtf?

That's clearly a security issue.

If there's no demonstrable privacy issue, it's a whim.

What makes it a whim? The fact that you disagree with it?

It's a decision. It could be a whim or not be a whim. You don't know.

No they can't. There's a time limit on editing for precisely that reason.
If somebody wants to edit after that time limit, they need to ask an admin or repost and the old one can be removed.

The editing limit is to protect the forum from precisely that. It's been that way for a long time.

People not being able to delete their own posts/accounts could put their security at risk. It's also irritating to not be able to delete your own content.

People should be careful about what they post. If they go against forum recommendations and post personal information, there is a small window where their security will be at increased risk.
Such posts are unlikely to occur often, and the risk is worth the benefit to the forum and other members of preserving conversations.

That's just not normal on forums, and there's not even a feature that allows a person to delete his or her own account and all posts in PHPBB. I don't see any reason to go against convention here, and you have presented none, only vague arguments about "should" without backing it up with evidence.

You're the one making the argument for going against the norm here and making extreme and expensive changes to how the forum works, you have the burden of proof.
So far, your arguments are just appeals to ideology, not actual arguments.

I asked you to frame it in consequential terms. What do you think the probability of somebody being physically injured due to content they have accidentally posted here is? I would say it's low, particularly since it would only be there for a couple hours.

It's meta activism; teaching activists how to make better arguments.
It's also post-activism through support. There is less direct activism; that's best done through leafleting or becoming famous (not an option for everybody).
I made a thread on this, let's continue this discussion there if you want.

Yes, as a professor you are very limited in what you can say and teach, and it takes many years of work to even get there -- all to speak to a few hundred students a year and influence a couple of them slightly.

You're putting words in my mouth if you're claiming I'm saying this is more important than every school everywhere. It's only more useful to post here than to teach; if you paid attention, you have seen philosophy professors come here to promote themselves. They get very little exposure from just teaching.

Clearly you don't understand what I was saying. If you have the posts saved, you can make them available again in the case they are deleted by some person who gets on your account somehow (which is extremely unlikely).

The privacy concern is that you don't have full autonomy to delete your personal private information. If I post that I live on 32 Tulip Avenue in New Orleans, I should be able to delete that right away. I shouldn't have to *politely* ask a moderator to do it for me, and potentially wait a period of time.

You can delete it right away. If you wait like 30 minutes, then you'll have to wait a couple hours for a mod to move it.
Not a big difference.

If you didn't figure out you messed up right away, you probably won't notice for a while.

What kind of a forum violates peoples' privacy intentionally because a user is impolite? Wtf?

It's not violating their privacy, it's not helping them fix what they did to themselves.
Big difference.

They can be nice, or they can fuck off. They shouldn't expect mods to do things for them if they're demanding ass hats about it.
Sorry, but that's how I feel.
It's not that hard to apologize and ask nicely. It takes seconds, all they have to do is swallow their egos and admit they made a mistake.